MAY
When we leave the jail, a narrow band of sky is the shade of orange sherbet. A train horn blares. The heavy clatter of freight makes talking or thinking impossible. Ever intuitive, Griff nods at Nick’s car and says, “Take your time. Ruby’s making a Sam’s Club run for the WCC before she heads back to Wildwood. I’ll drop you at Gladys’s and save Nick a trip.”
Nick has bitten the skin around his nail beds and they’re bleeding, but he offers me a weary smile. I step closer, not too close. Near enough to telegraph that his presence is welcome. He has this ability to let me oscillate between hot and cold without holding either temperature against me, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful than I am right now.
“That was brutal,” he says, slumping against the hood.
“I don’t understand him.”
“Who does?”
“He’s hurting.”
Nick doesn’t make some big show, just says, “So are you,” and unlocks the passenger side of his car. I fall into the seat sideways and he crouches by my knees. Thankfully, he stares at the toes of his shoes, first picking at the place the rubber sole meets the fabric, then threading his hand through his hair. Yesterday’s hair spray is a gummy mess and none of his attempts tames the Howard Stern ’fro. “I don’t know how to help,” he admits.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Mine must be in Gladys’s car.
I stare at the number pad. I’d grown up doing phone number drills the way Tank grew up reciting scripture for nuns. “Your dad’s?” Warren would demand. I’d reel off the numbers. “Mine?” More rip-fire numbers. “Griff’s?” Same. “Ruby’s?” Same. Despite my training, I reach deep to remember the area code.
4:32 her time.
Alaska’s three hours behind most of Kentucky. If she’s even living there still. Last Dad and I checked—thank you, Facebook—my mother managed a Game Stop in Juneau and was in a relationship with some man-child named Xane. They have two German shepherds, Punch and Judy, whom they photograph obsessively.
She won’t know it’s me. This number will read like a random solicitor and I doubt she’ll pick up, but I’d like to hear her voice. That annoying high-pitch buzz erupts in my ear, followed by “We’re sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and dial again.”
I dial again.
Same message.
Nick hands me a bottle of water he fished from behind the seat, probably to keep me from throwing his phone. He doesn’t do what most people do when they find themselves uncomfortable. There’s no strange comparison of how his life is similar to mine in x way. No platitudes about how much this sucks.
“What now?” he asks.
“You finish your homework, and Griff takes me to Gladys’s.”
He laments, “I shouldn’t have signed up for this summer class, but I need it to graduate on time.”
I set my water bottle on the floorboard, offer him my hands, and we pull each other up. When we’re in a quasi-hugging standing position, my thumbs tucked through the back belt loop on his jeans, I angle us into a kissing position. Nick never even glances at my lips.
“I’m being unfair to you,” I say.
“Unfair?”
Because of Aulus, Nick could never be reduced to some boyfriend I had one year in high school. But I wonder if he’s trapped here, stitched to me by ongoing tragedy. Days like today—you can hear the hum of the sewing machine making another pass over our hands. The needle feels great to me, safe and sound, a tidy suture, but it’s probably stinging his palms. How long before Nick thinks, What’s in this for me? Or maybe we end when his parents or sister bring up the obvious point, Do you want to tie yourself to a girl with an incarcerated father or do you want to make law partner someday?
Nick says, “The only unfair thing that exists today is what happened with your dad.”
Does he mean that? Or is some part of him asking what I’d be asking if this situation were reversed: Does mental illness run in the family? Am I one step away from stealing a baby stroller or obsessing over some ridiculous Arthurian project? I think I have the obsession in me, though not the deviousness.
“If you can’t sleep, call me,” Nick says and kisses my nose.
How long has it been since we kiss kissed? Before Chris Jenkins.
“Thank you,” I say, but I’m fast-forwarding to the moment my dad’s in prison and Nick’s walking a perky, leather bag–toting, tortoiseshell cat-eye glasses–wearing girl from trial law class back to her dorm; they kiss passionately; he sighs with relief and thinks, That was so much better than anything I ever did with my crazy ex-girlfriend.
I fall into Griff’s Accord, determined not to think about the men in my life. The leather seat is cool from the air conditioning. I consider putting my head directly in front of the vent.
“Do you know where my mother is?” I ask, exasperated, wishing I hadn’t given Dad my ponytail holder.
“Seat belt.”
“My mother.”
“Debra.” He practically spits her name.
“Yes. Unless there’s some other mother I don’t know about.”
“Seat belt,” Griff repeats.
This time I oblige, and Griff says he has Debra’s number somewhere. Based on that response, he has the same number I already dialed.
“Don’t bother,” I tell him. “I’ll send her a message on Facebook.”
“You sure she should know about Don’s arrest?”
The question’s a snake on the path. We wait for it to slither away. By the time it does, we’re back in Wildwood’s city limits, the flashing courthouse clock telling us it’s after seven. Griff breaks the silence. “You don’t want to stay with us tonight?”
“I’ll be fine at Gladys’s.”
Griff exhales. I can’t tell if he’s relieved or frustrated.
“Why did you say my mother’s name like that earlier?”
Without so much as a blinker of warning, Griff whips into a spot in front of Barlow’s Flowers. The square’s mostly empty. Only spillover cars from the Mexican restaurant are parked in this corner. The bank’s dark. The antique shop beside Barlow’s has a flashing Closed sign that brightens the Accord’s dashboard with rose-colored twinkles. Griff drums his thumbs on the steering wheel in time with the sign.
“Griff?” On a day like today I can take as many scoops of pain as he can dish.
“I was thinking about Constance.”
I raise the sunshade, lower it again. Fiddle with the child lock button on the door. “Constance?” The name means nothing to me.
“Don’s first wife.” The phrase slips through gritted teeth. My dad was married before Mom. Another lie. “Every time Debra surfaces for one reason or another, I can’t help but think what could have been with Stancy. I know Debra’s your mom—”
“Womb donor,” I insert.
Griff’s temporarily dazed by my correction, but he approves of my assessment. “I wouldn’t change a hair on your head, kiddo, but if you had the pleasure of meeting Stancy, your dad chose the wrong . . . ‘womb donor.’ Anyway, you asked for her number and I was thinking we should call Const—”
He catches sight of my face and understands this is the first I’ve heard of Constance. Griff shifts the car into reverse. “You don’t need more on your plate. We’ll discuss Constance some other time.”
Some other time? I punch Griff’s glove box until it vomits his registration, rogue paperwork, tire gauge, and a set of keys onto my lap and the floorboard. I slam the flapping door three times and it still hangs open. Griff watches the traffic over his shoulder before backing out.
“Griff, stop stalling and tell me.”
The car pauses half in the spot, half in the street. A horn honks and Griff waves an apology the driver surely can’t see in the darkness. He backs out. “I don’t think that’s a good—”
“Griff!”
He takes the first exit off the square toward Gladys’s. There are seven stoplights remaining and time for him to explain. He begins, “Constance O’Brien. They met his junior year at Tech, her freshman. They started and ended quickly.”
The Crimea started and ended quickly. Side ponytails started and ended quickly. Deep Blue Something started and ended quickly. They all still happened. Length of time doesn’t negate realness.
“Why don’t I know about her?”
“Your dad took nine years to tell you about the castle.”
I’ve never asked Griff how long he and Ruby and Warren knew about the castle, but there’s no doubt they found out before me. Based on his scowl, he was Team Tell Thea.
“Where’s Constance now?”
“No idea,” Griff says. “She was always quirky. But so was your dad back then. Very devout, you know?”
“Devout? Like, religious?”
Griff nods. “He and Constance met at a campus prayer thing.”
We are holiday church attendees—primarily Easter and Christmas. This stretches my concept drawing of Dad.
“I’d already moved back to Wildwood when they split. He was living in Jackson, and Ruby—she was on a service call to Memphis—worked for Every Child Now and stopped to surprise him with brownies. He ended up surprising her. No wedding ring. No Constance. I called him and asked what in the world was going on. He said he was divorced and wasn’t fielding additional questions. You know how he is.”
Griff pulls into Gladys’s drive. The Baxters’ security light bathes the Accord in yellow.
“Yeah,” I say. “No keys to his basement.”
Gladys and I huddle together on her bed with the computer, spend five minutes googling, and bam, pretty hippie Constance O’Brien fills the screen. Right age, attended Tech, still near and dear to her religious roots. The most unsettling part: she looks like my mom. They have the same shoulder-length brown hair and fringe. Same watery blue eyes. Neither woman could be a pound over one twenty.
Gladys has never met Mom, but she has served as sidekick for my What’s Debra doing these days? internet searches. First sight of Constance and she pushes the laptop toward her knees.
“Wow. I mean, wow.”
I resemble Mom more than Dad, so my likeness to Constance is equally uncanny. Gladys won’t stop remarking on our similar features. I click the next link.
Constance pastors a nondenominational church in Lexington, Kentucky, called Faith United. They have a service tomorrow at 10:15.
“She might know things about Dad no one else does,” I suggest.
Gladys sees what I want before I have the courage to ask. Always up for an adventure, she says, “We could go, you know. Tomorrow is Sunday.”
I try to be logical. “Warren or Griff or Ruby would know the same things.”
“Maybe, but this is a rock that needs turning over.”
That’s the smile that got her kicked out of Walmart for playing Supermarket Sweep in a wheelchair buggy. She’s always so meek, until she isn’t.
While I brush my teeth, Gladys calls Tank and Nick and tells them they are coming with. “Tank will be here early. We’re picking Nick up on the way,” she says when I crawl into bed.
Now it’s three a.m., and I’m lying next to Gladys, coiling my brain around Constance O’Brien. In a few hours, I’m meeting the woman who could have been my mother. Except if I had half of her DNA instead of Debra’s, I’d be someone else. Dad might be someone else. Maybe even, if Constance were my mom, she’d be the type who slipped under the covers with me on difficult nights and snuggled close. This imaginary woman, easily maternal, smooths my hair and says, “Oh, baby. We’ll get through this.” She doesn’t run a Game Stop in Alaska with a disconnected phone. She doesn’t use my college fund to build a castle.
I have Gladys, at least. Our heads are basically touching, and though she’s exhausted, she startles awake when I twist in the covers and asks, “You okay?”
“Go back to sleep,” I tell her and watch her eyelids fall, only to see them pop open five minutes later. She asks, “You sure?” to which I answer, “I’m fine.”
Eventually she believes me. Or she can’t hold her eyes open. I listen to her snore and try to stop tossing and turning. I dream about Constance.
Against all odds, we run ahead of schedule the next morning. Nick and backpack fall into the back seat with a carrier of coffee that makes Gladys kiss his cheek and Tank say, “This is why you’re my favorite.”
Despite the Starbucks run, Nick’s only partially dressed. His tie hangs like a narrow green sash. His belt’s not latched. He’s toting a plastic bag with hair gel and worn black shoes that he pitches into the space between us.
“Nice dress,” he says.
“Nice undershirt,” I say. His dress shirt is still unbuttoned.
He straightens to check his hair in the rearview mirror and says, “Gotta get fancy for church. Is this an alternate universe or what?”
I didn’t pack fancy, so I’m trusting Gladys’s black knit A-line to be appropriately holy for Sunday worship.
Faith United is located in a grubby strip mall near the Lexington Horse Park. Based on shoddy sign work, the church used to be a Dollar General. There’s a Peddlers Mall to the right, a Fantastic Sams on the left. Sedans and minivans with windshield sticker families surround us. Tank coasts into a spot next to a conversion van. Kids tumble out of the vehicle like clowns at the circus, the boys dressed in matching black vests, the girls in pink-and-yellow-striped sundresses. Nick finishes the final tuck of the Windsor knot and spritzes hair gel onto his hands. The car stinks of strawberry.
Tank coughs dramatically. “Hey, yo, Justin! Tame that poodle outside?”
“Justin?” Nick asks.
“Timberlake,” Gladys says with a laugh.
“Ha-ha,” Nick says, good humored. “Please remember, from this distance to church, God can hear you being mean to me.”
Everyone laughs and before I know it we’re at the front door and Pastor Constance is greeting us.
Handshake: warm with medium pressure.
Smile: wide and lovely.
Dress: ankle length, purple and flowing, quarter-length sleeves. Tasteful.
No wedding ring, no extra-large Bible tucked under her arm, no pretense. Only softness when she says, “Welcome to Faith. We’re glad you’re here this morning.”
Becoming. That’s my word for Constance. Followed closely by: magnetic. Not only that, she’s genuinely glad we’re visiting, or she’s very good at faking joy. I manage a timid “Hi,” and Tank chooses four chairs in the back of the sanctuary.
Most of my Sunday mornings are a haze of milk and doughnuts. When I confess my nerves to Nick, who’s usually the one supplying the pastries, he says, “Right there with you.”
I’m charmed by the music. More than charmed. I’m stirred. All around me, earnest hearts are laid bare. I don’t think religion is for me, but we’re in an old Dollar General with terrible industrial lighting; exposed ductwork drops glittery dust motes into the air that land like dandruff on shoulders and hair; black smears scar the tile floor where shelves sat for decades; and there’s a homey feeling. Nothing is fancy and everything is real. Far more real than I expected. Especially when Constance starts speaking.
“She’s great,” Nick whispers in my ear at the same moment Tank finger-guns in the pastor’s direction and mouths, Dude. I love her.
I think: This is not a woman a sane man leaves.
I think: What if she were my mother?
I think: Tell me secrets about my father.
Constance offers congregants a chance to come forward, and I traverse the middle aisle, full of fear and hope. One glance over my shoulder equals three nods. Go on, they encourage, and I kneel. She’s before me now. Her warm hand touches my forehead, surprising me a little. Her eyes—they’re the color of a winter sky and almost snow—meet mine with compassion.
“My father was arrested yesterday,” I whisper.
She holds me. She is narrow shoulders, thin arms, and lavender, which I’ve never particularly enjoyed but find soothing. I’ve never seen a car crusher in action, but this must be how old Volvos feel. In an instant, it is more than an embrace; it is her soul in a body. Her cheek lands next to mine, the powder smell so similar to the makeup drawer in my bathroom. I miss home and Dad in a dizzying way. I don’t realize I’m shaking until her fingers slide up and down the knit backing of Gladys’s dress.
From inside this hug, I say, “His name is Don Delacroix.”